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All Da King's Men

The Return Of Slick Willie

By David King Published: September 6, 2012

I've been watching the Democratic Naitonal Convention over the last couple days, where the lies and disinformation crash down on you like the mighty waters of Niagara Falls. I don't know if I've ever witnessed so much subterfuge concentrated in one spot like that.  It's been a true wonder,  a veritable factchecker's dream. If the Democratic jobs plan is to create employment for factcheckers, then, congratulations Dems, your economic plan is working after all.

Being an industrious lttle blogger (at times), I began watching the spectacle with a notebook and pen in hand, making one-line notes of each odious emanation wafting down on the people from the convention stage. I had filled up nearly three full pages, when all of a sudden, it happened. The Red Sea parted, a holy light shone down from above, and a deity appeared...

Former President Bill Clinton took the stage. 

I put down my notepad and pen, because I knew this was a game changer almost immediately. As I watched the rapturous faces of the true believers soak in the Gospel According to St. Bubba, I felt a twang of nostalgia. When was the last time I believed in anything as much as that credulous, ecstatic crowd believed in the words of Bill ??? They were having a religious experience. It reminded me of when I was in the third grade, and a nun told me my best friend was going to hell because he wasn't Catholic. I believed her then. I was distraught, but I had an excuse for my naivete. I was only eight years old. The Rapture In Charlotte was happening to fully-grown adults. That's how talented a politician is William Jefferson Clinton.

President Bill once said, "the era of big government is over". That was never true, of course, but it sounded good at the time. That's the essence of Bill Clinton's gift. He says lots of things that sound good, but aren't really true. Last night served as yet more proof of the point, as if we needed any. They don't call him Slick WIllie for nothing.

Despite the fact that the era of big government was never over, I'm nicknaming last night's Clinton speech, 'The Era Of Big Government Is Back". He sang it's praises to the rafters.

Bill Clinton is so good that he almost gets me to believe him sometimes, and I'm about as far from being a true believer as one can get. I'd love to be simple enough to believe more and more government control is the end-all cure-all solution to all that ails us, but I've seen far too much evidence to the contrary to go down that totalitarian bunny hole. I've read the history books. Plus, I'm no longer eight years old. If government was the solution, we'd all be farting through silk, because we have more government than we've ever had. It consumes nearly half our entire Gross Domestic Product these days, yet things haven't been this bad in America in 70 years. So much for government being the solution. As Reagan said,...well, you know already.

Still, the true believers think having the biggest government we've ever had simply isn't enough. They are certain that more and more government is the answer. This is where the old saying about liberals comes from - 'liberals never admit their policies don't work. When a liberal policy is failing, liberals think they just haven''t done enough of it yet'. This saying sums up poor Elizabeth Warren's speech from last night, which I will nickname, "Victiimology 101: Freedom Is Evil And Must Be Stopped'.

Clinton officially nominated Barack Obama for President:

"I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama. I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party."

That's Clinton for you. As I said, it sounds good, but it's not really true. Bill Clinton tried to convince Hillary to run against Obama in 2012, according to the book, The Amateur. Hillary wouldn't do it, citing loyalty as the reason. Bill called Obama "an amateur" at the time, thus the title of the book. In 2008, as I noted on the blog previously, Bill told Ted Kennedy that Obama should have been carrying their bags instead of running for President. That's how much Bill wants Obama to be the next President.

Bill's speech touched on a variety of issues. Notably absent were things like Obama's record debt run-up and record deficits, the unemployment rate, the lowest workforce participation rate in decades, the worst misery index in a long time, etc. Also absent was any mention of women's issues, if you get my drift. Willie is slick, and not about to make himself THAT easy of a target. 

 Clinton tried to supply cover for Obama's "You didn't build that" blunder:

"In Tampa [Republican National Convention], we heard a lot of talk about how the president and the Democrats don't believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so".

I'm just spitballing here, but maybe Republicans think Obama wants everyone dependent on the government because Obama keeps pushing policies that make everyone more dependent on the government. I hope my thinking isn't too obtuse for the true believers to follow. Notice how Clinton tries to shoot down this Republican "narrative" at the same time he contradictoraily tells us we don't do things on our own ("a log cabin he built himself"). He denies Obama's government control ideology at the same time he's defending it. Slick.

Next, Clinton erects a straw man to knock down:

"We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's right? Well, since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million".

I've yet to hear of a Republican who believes we should have no government, no regulations, no taxes, no infrastructure, etc. I only hear Democrats dishonestly pretending this is what Republicans want.

I already covered job creation in a recent post, so I won't go further into that again, but keep in mind how Clinton uses absolute jobs numbers by President in an attempt to portray Democrats as the better job creators. That will come back into play.

Clinton shamelessly played the race card:

"Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals. I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake."

Translation - These extremist Republicans of today hate Obama because he's black. Disgusting, Mr. Bill. And speaking of hate, President Clinton, you must have forgotten how the left spoke about President Bush, or how they've been going around calling Republicans Nazis the last few days. There's the real hate. It's not found in the racial identity politics that exists only in the minds of yourself and your true believers.
 
Clinton sang the phony 'Republicans are obstructionist" tune:

"When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. All of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. They think government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness".
 
I will give Clinton credit in the end for working with his Republican-led Congress during his own presidency. That's how we achieved a balanced budget and stemmed the growth of government, relatively speaking. Apparently though, Clinton has forgotten all that, and is backing the most fiscally irresponsible President in American history now. Go figure. Not to mention that cooperation is a two-way street. The only thing today's Democrats mean when they say "cooperation" is "do what we want". That's why ObamaCare was passed against the will of the American people, with only Democrats voting for it. That's why 30 GOP jobs bill languish in the Senate, where Harry Reid won't even bring them up for a vote. Clinton may fool the true believers, but don't let him fool you.
 
Here's Clinton on Obama's wonderful job creation record, in case you didn't realize how wonderful it was:
 
"The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the president's jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, congressional Republicans zero".

There's that unmeasurable "saved or created' jobs terminology again. I was hoping I'd heard the last of it.

Remember how Clinton used absolute jobs numbers by President to make it appear Democrats were the better job creators ? Here, he does precisely the opposite, cherry-picking Obama's job numbers to make them appear as rosy as possible. Obama's absolute job creation numbers over 3 year and 8 months in office are - a littile over 300,000 total jobs created. The unemployment rate of 8.3% is higher than when Obama took office. And before any of you Democrats start piping up to defend Obama, ask yourselves if you ever judged Pres. Bush differently than in absolute terms. You know you didn't. You didn't factor in the dot-com recession that Bush inherited. You didn't factor in 9/11 or Katrina. You didn't factor in the housing crisis and subsequent financial crisis. You didn't factor in any of it. You just said Bush was lousy on job creation (which the speakers at the Democratic convention are still doing), despite Bush's average unemployment rate of 5.2%, and despite the fact that Bush had 52 straight months of jobs creation from 2003-2007, creating jobs during that period faster than Obama has. If we're going to judge by a standard, at least make it the SAME standard, instead of judging Obama one way and Bush another, like Clinton did.

The part about how Republicans allegedly blocked the creation of a million jobs is little more than a pipe dream. The Republicans could say the same thing about the Democrats (the 30 jobs bills being held up in the Senate).

I will agree with Clinton about how tax cuts stimulate the economy, however. That has been proven over and over, but Clinton shouldn't push both tax cuts and big government at the same time. Isn't that what Democrats criticized Bush for doing ? How can it be wrong then, but right now ? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'd like to say a lot more about Clinton's speech, but this is getting rather lengthy. Maybe I'll write a  Part II, seeing as how nothing worthwhile should be coming from the Democratic convention tonight. Gaffemaster Biden is the featured speaker. Generally, he provides little more than comic relief.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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